I know with all the many things I could wonder about this seems low on the totem pole. For a brief history, I've been playing MMO's since before classic EQ. I recall there was customer service in EQ that did something, I will spare you the recall of the highlights, I'm certain if you played at some point you needed them, and if my experiences were a gauge I imagine they treated you like a paying customer and fairly.
The years since that have been pretty pathetic. Today I added another MMO to my list of cancelled subscriptions. In the past 2 years, I've experienced critical failures on the part of customer service (aka in-game support) to fulfill what I consider to be their due dilligence on matters of some importance. I'll briefly recap two instances here for your consideration, if you so choose, to determine whether or not you feel there was a failure.
ESO - Unsubed a little over a year ago due to a processing issue that could not be resolved somehow. My card was mysteriously declined. I contacted my bank, who indicated the charges that were supposedly declined were never presented to them for processing. I also consulted my online banking which also did not list any declined charges. I sought to speak to someone about the issue, having been a loyal subscriber since early beta. Speaking to someone seemed to be quite impossible. Now, while I can understand not being able to call a GM on the phone and discuss your missing items, I cannot understand a game, which is dependent upon monetary transactions, not having a live person to discuss billing and payment issues. I corrisponded via email for a couple of weeks before I was told that their processing company had 'locked' the card, and would not process it again, because I had done as instructed in the emails, which was just go try it again repeatedly. They suggested I get another card. This seemed pretty fail to me, but I went to my online banking and made myself a virtual card, just to try their solution, it is worth noting that I tried both the original card and the virtual card with other games to be sure they were both active and working, both worked fine during each transaction. Which, of course, yielded the same results in Failamax's system. Weeks of back and forth, no resolution, and no one has bothered to ask me after over 9 months whether or not the issue was resolved, not even with a generic email.
DDO - Some may be familiar with the remnant system. Basically, in dungeons, about 1/5'ish of the mobs will have a crown of some kind, meaning they are boosted, and have a chance to drop a currency known as remnants. While each drop can be between 1 and 74 (or, well, 74 is the largest number I've ever gotten in one drop) mostly you will average around 10'ish. So an extra hard day (meaning 8 hours minumum) of grinding dungeons might result in a few hundred remnants assuming average RNG behavior. Moving the story along, I had worked dilligently for weeks and saved up over 10k of these annoying things to buy a couple of tomes (that can only be purchased with these tokens). Upon making the purchase, somehow 10,000 - 5000 = 1577.. Wait, what?!?! Clearly a bug. And I'm suddenly missing over 3500 remnants. I immediately submit a ticket. Over a week later I receive the response (and I paraphrase, but not much) "We have the data. We can't help you. Submit a bug report." For probably the past 10 years, I've bought a yearly subscription with this game, and purchased every expansion they put out in pre-order collectors edition. In fact, I had just purchased the pre-order collectors edition of their newest expansion, only a few weeks prior to this event.
This sort of "Just give us more money, and go F yourself" attitude seems to be all too common now days with games. These are only a couple of my personal experiences, but I've heard many horror stories from other gamers and guildies. I know that I may seem to have a bad attitude, but the idea that our relationship with a game is viewed more like a junky to a dealer instead of a paying customer to a service providing company really aggitates me.
I'm only writing this post because I would like to know if we, as loyal paying customers, will be treated with the respect and care that we deserve. I want to trust that when there is a problem, and believe me, it's not a matter of *IF* it's a matter of *WHEN* - will the problem be solved in a timely manner and to the customer's satisfaction, or will we be patronized with an empty apology and pathetic excuses?
ESO - Unsubed a little over a year ago due to a processing issue that could not be resolved somehow. My card was mysteriously declined. I contacted my bank, who indicated the charges that were supposedly declined were never presented to them for processing. I also consulted my online banking which also did not list any declined charges. I sought to speak to someone about the issue, having been a loyal subscriber since early beta. Speaking to someone seemed to be quite impossible. Now, while I can understand not being able to call a GM on the phone and discuss your missing items, I cannot understand a game, which is dependent upon monetary transactions, not having a live person to discuss billing and payment issues. I corrisponded via email for a couple of weeks before I was told that their processing company had 'locked' the card, and would not process it again, because I had done as instructed in the emails, which was just go try it again repeatedly. They suggested I get another card. This seemed pretty fail to me, but I went to my online banking and made myself a virtual card, just to try their solution, it is worth noting that I tried both the original card and the virtual card with other games to be sure they were both active and working, both worked fine during each transaction. Which, of course, yielded the same results in Failamax's system. Weeks of back and forth, no resolution, and no one has bothered to ask me after over 9 months whether or not the issue was resolved, not even with a generic email.
I feel your pain my friend. As far as classic eq they were fantastic. I had one issue that was resolved with no problem. It wasnot even a bug issue but an issue with moving a character from one account to another.
As far as ESO they were horrible. My cancelation came after I tried to solve an issue with spells and certain abilities not working in a dungeon. I needed to go into a dungeon to finish a quest and as I entered and tried to use an ability it would not work. I would zone out and it would work again. I tried this 4 times with the same results. I then went to another dungeon and tried the ability and it worked fine. After contacting cs several times with no success I was finaly able to get a response. I was told to comeback to the dungeon at another time because it was probably so busy that the only answer was to come back when the dungeon was not too busy.This was followed by me cancelling my sub and not returning.
If the dungeon was so packed,and it was not , why was this not fixed in beta or after it was reported. But to tell you that you need to come back later to see if it was stable enough was b.s.
Every game that gets popular enough inevitably cannot keep up with CS demands. Every MMO with over 10k, 50k, or 100k (pick your threshold) subs/customers has proven this over the past 20 years. Seriously. Even if it was 1 CS staff per 1000 customers, you're going to hire 50 or 100 CSR's? Sure you are. Never. Going. To. Happen.
Initially, some games had in-game GM's. This was awesome. Then they get popular, and the CS manager says: Get out of the game and get onto the queue. Fix the tickets. Make our metrics look good.
Then, eventually, the constant drain on the opex budget for CS and support in general ("Good Lord, they don't make us any MONEY!!") is seen as a quick win for improving the bottom line of certain departments. Finance is driving.. the bus. This is the point at which the phone lines are typically re/moved, and CS is outsourced to a country with shockingly low wages and shockingly high human rights violations. :)
This concludes the Terrible Tale of Timmy The Troubleshooter. Please hold and someone will be with you shortly. Your patience is appreciated. Your call is important to us.
Kaen said:I think we've all been there at some point or another, and it is definitely frustrating. For now, I think we should have faith in VR. They've been very present and helpful here on the forums, so I don't see a reason to doubt them :)
I want to believe that, Kaen. However, lack of doubt does not earn trust, it simply makes it possible to earn trust - especially when lacking a formal commitment. I've carefully reviewed the Game Tenents as well as the FAQ. I consider the act of placing these items in these areas consitutes a commitment. In fact, these two items are the very reason I pledged in the first place. However, the thing I did not see in those, lets call them 'commitments', was in regards to caring for the customer. If everything was perfect, and nothing ever went wrong it wouldn't be a factor. I think anyone who's ever played a game, especially an MMO, knows that's just fiction. Things go wrong... It's an accepted fact. I'm just not willing to accept a token CS system not empowered to rectify the situation appropriately.
The methods and excuses for the decline means jack to me as a customer, Vjek. Having been considering an additional pledge for Christmas, and having recently been reminded vividly of just how inappropriately we are often treated by token CS teams - I was given pause after reviewing the previously mentioned documents as they lacked a formal commitment to customer care.
Isaya said:I feel your pain my friend. As far as classic eq they were fantastic. I had one issue that was resolved with no problem. It wasnot even a bug issue but an issue with moving a character from one account to another.
Exactly, it was different then wasn't it? Since then we have started to take for granted that we'll be treated properly, and seems like companies have started to take for granted we'll just keep subscribing regardless...
Incidentally, there were so many bugs like that in ESO that I just got over, because I wanted to play ever since the very beginning. I understood server congestion, bugs that made the game virtually unplayable, and even ridiculous imbalances in both pve and pvp. I felt like those things were systemic, and would be resolved. Eventually, they were resolved. Those types of issues I can understand. AE's going through walls and wiping the group because it pulled everything in the dungeon, right? lol Skills not working as intended. Server issues. These are all things we already know can happen, but we know they will be fixed eventually. Most players even understand that sometimes those bugs are hard to trace and fix, or well, I do. I weathered this storm as most dedicated gamers, who enjoyed that particular world did, and I didn't really complain too much about it. I reported it, and I trusted the devs to sort it out. I might have taken a break, as I did when the servers got so bad it was almost impossible to walk in certain zones without rubber-banding, but I never unsubed because of it.
The devs in most games know that big issues that effect many people can seriously hurt the game, and therefore will dilligently work to rectify it. It seems obvious that the CS department dismissed you instead of either getting you a proper resolution or giving you a proper answer, such as 'it's a known issue, and we are working to correct it. Please bare with us, and here is some nice gift boxes as an apology for the inconvenience..." for example. Think about how long it's been since you were compensated in a live game for issues that are not your fault, that frustrate and inhibit your enjoyment of the game? Would the gift boxes be game breaking? No.... Would they be useful, sure... Would they make up for what was happening, probably not, but they would at least make you feel like you were a valued customer, and the company valued your continued support and patience during the trouble time.
Though, I should reiterate this kind of server/game wide issue is not the focus of my post. :)
As far as customer service goes I'd figure it will be like an improved version of what we had in early EQ. There will be the offline support staff who deal with account/login issues and general inquiry, the in-game GMs that handle issues that arise in the game like harassment/glitches/bugs/etc, and then there will be the guides that act as the filter so GMs can deal with "real" issues that are beyond the scope of a guide but otherwise have a wide variety of tools they can use to assist players with various problems.
To quote the FAQ and Kilsin on this:
10.2 Will there be a volunteer guide system?
Absolutely. We will begin putting that program together in Beta or earlier. Additionally, we will also have a guild outreach program and mentoring system. Onboarding and helping newcomers get acquainted with the game is very important to us.
This is a program that I am leading up and it is too early to give public information out as it is still in internal building mode, it will be a mix of EQ/VG with a lot of lessons learned and new features to help us, I will release more details on it later as we move into testing and I am able to get the program to a point where we can start taking public applications.